1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a document preparation support system which supports document style design and more particularly, to a document style design support system which effectively supports document style design preparer based on document style design knowledge according to user's preference.
2. Description of the Related Art
In preparing a document, generally speaking, preparation of a document from its very beginning imposes a considerable amount of labor on a document preparer or user. This is because, in preparation of the document, he must decide not only the contents itself of the document but also, e.g., the layout of the document, the size and typeface of characters in the document which determine the design of the finished document. Further, when the user is required to select one of combinations of colors when it is desired to design the document style of a colored document, in particular, the ordinary user usually cannot select a suitable color combination.
For this reason, when it is desired to get a good-looking document satisfying user's intention and application, it has been conventional that the document user asks a document design expert known as an editorial designer the preparation of the document, or the document user prepares the document by himself while holding a consultation with the editorial designer. However, the request of the document preparation to the editorial designer generally involves a lot of cost and time. For this reason, only limited types of documents have been requested of the editorial designers in actual circumstances.
Meanwhile, there have been proposed techniques for supporting preparer's document preparation to produce a good document based on word processors or desk top publishing (DTP) systems. A major one of such techniques is to accumulate good-looking documents which have been so far prepared and help a document preparer to re-use them, that is, to support preparer's document preparation. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-175965 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-304575 disclose a document processing system in which documents are previously classified and accumulated depending on different applications and one of the accumulated documents having the similar properties to a desired new document to be prepared is selected and for its re-use. In a document format applying method having document style design contents previously stored is one technique. On the other hand, one of a plurality of previously-prepared document formats may be selected and parameters of the selected document format may be applied to a document to be newly prepared for document design to obtain a good-looking new document output. An example embodying this method is such a system as a LaTex (L. Lamport, LATEX: A Document Preparation System, Addison-Wesley, 1985) which is used as a document formatter. There has also been proposed a document editing system which analyzes the logical structure of a document and on the analysis result, selects and applies a suitable format, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 62-229364 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-180062.
However, in the method for re-using past documents, the more the document examples to be selected are the more difficult it is for an ordinary document preparer having no design knowledge to select one of the examples meeting his intention and application. Further, the less the document examples to be selected are the less the possibility of selecting one of the examples satisfying his intention and application is, which leads to the fact that the document selection itself sometimes becomes meaningless. Furthermore, when the user cannot understand the system so that he cannot recognize to such an extent that part in the document example which reflects his intention and application, he cannot select the part in the document example to be re-used. Accordingly, ordinary document users could use the system only at the time of the preparation of such regular form documents as business letters.
Meanwhile, even in the document-format applying method, so long as the selection of a document format is right, a certain level of quality of document can be obtained. However, as in the method for re-using the past documents, when the document preparer cannot understand the system to select that part in the finished document obtained through the format application which best reflects his intention and application, he cannot correct improper points generated under the inherent conditions of the document or improper points caused by the unsuitable selection of the format in the finished document. Accordingly, ordinary document users could not obtain always a desired document. This method also has the problem that the more formats to be selected are prepared the more difficult it is for the document preparer to judge; while the less formats to be selected result in a lesser possibility of selecting one of the formats satisfying his intention and application.
Both methods have had the problem that even when the ordinary system user having no design knowledge tries to modify and correct the selected document, he does not know how to copy which parts of the past-prepared or previously-prepared document and to correct which parts thereof to reflect his intention and application on a document, so that he cannot make full use of the existing documents and formats properly, which results in that he cannot obtain a certain quality of or higher quality of designed documents unless he prepares the document while holding a consultation with a design expert.